The Queen and the Guillotine

"'At five in the morning, while the Queen was still writing her farewell letter,' Monsieur de France opened the story, "said the Moon when she came, after saying Basmalah and Salaam. "The the Monsieur resumed, 'in the eight-and-forty sections of Paris, the drums were beating. By seven, the whole armed force of the capital was afoot; loaded cannons guarded the bridges; infantrymen with fixed bayonets lined the streets, and there were squadrons of cavalry to reinforce them—a vast display of soldiers against a lonely woman, who herself wished for nothing but the end. Often enough the wielders of force are more afraid of their victim than is their victim of the wielders of force.

At seven, the kitchen-maid of the prison governor, stole into the Queen’s cell. On the table, the two wax candles were still burning; in the corner, a watchful shadow, sat the gendarme—an armed police officer in France—on duty. At first, Rosalie did not see the prisoner, then, as she looked more closely, she perceived that the Queen, fully dressed and wearing her black widow's gown, was lying on the bed. Not asleep, only tired, and worn out by repeated haemorrhages.

The country girl was full of passionate sympathy for this queen, who was about to be put to death, 'Madame,' she said, coming close to the bed, 'you had nothing to eat yesterday evening, and took almost nothing during the day. What can I bring you this morning?'

'Child, I want nothing more, since for me everything is finished,' answered the Queen, without sitting up.

When the girl once more urged her to take some soup which had been specially prepared for her, she answered, 'Very well, Rosalie, bring me the soup.' She swallowed a few spoonfuls, and then the serving-maid began to help her undress. The Queen, Marie Antoinette, had been forbidden to go to the scaffold in the mourning she had worn when on trial before the Revolutionary Tribunal, since the authorities were afraid that this widow's dress, might be regarded by the people as provocative. Well, what did a dress matter now? She made no objection, and decided to don a simple white gown.

But even for this last occasion, a last humiliation had been kept in store. For many days, now, she had been losing blood, and the shift she was wearing, was soiled with it. Having a natural desire to go to her death clean, she wanted to put on fresh undergarments, and begged the gendarme, to withdraw for a few minutes. But he, having been given strict orders, not to let her out of his sight for a moment, said he had no choice but to refuse. The Queen, therefore, crouched in the narrow space between the bed and the wall, and, while she was changing her shift, the kitchen-maid stood between her and the gendarme, to hide her nakedness. But the blood-stained undergarment, what was to be done with that? She was ashamed at the thought of leaving her soiled linen for the prying cyes of those who, within a few hours, would enter her cell to scrutinize all that she had left there; so, rapidly rolling it up into a small bundle, she stuffed it into a crevice behind the stove.

Then she dressed herself with peculiar care. It was more than a year since she had set foot in the streets, more than a year since she had had a free outlook into the sky. This last progress, should find her respectably and cleanly dressed. The desire that animated her, was no longer feminine vanity, but a sense of dignity for a historical hour. She carefully smoothed her white gown, wrapped her neck in a muslin cloth, and put on her best shoes. Her white hair she covered with a two-winged cap.

At eight o'clock, there came a knock at the door. No, it was not yet the executioner, but only a herald of the executioner, a priest, one of those who had taken the oath of fealty to the Republic. The Queen recognized no priest but the non-jurors, and she refused, courteausly, to confess her sins and seek absolution from a man whom she regarded as an apostate. When he asked her whether he should accompany her upon her last journey, she answered indifferently, 'As you please!'

This seeming indifference was the wall of defence behind which Marie Antoinette was preparing her fortitude for the drive to the scaffold. When, at ten o'clock, Sanson—actually Charles Henri, known as the Great Henri, son of Chevalier Charles-Henri Sanson de Longval—the executioner, a young man of great stature, entered to cut her hair, she made no protest and offered no resistance, nor yet when he tied her hands behind her back. LIFE, she knew, could no longer be saved, but only HONOUR. Her honour demanded that, there should be no sign of weakness, STEADFASTNESS, that alone was needed, to show all who cared how a daughter of Maria Theresa, could die.

At about eleven, the gates of the Conciergerie were thrown open. Outside stood the tumbril—the name, misapplied, which has become traditional for the sort of knacker’s cart or float in which, drawn by a heavily built horse, the victims of the Revolutionary Tribunal were driven to exccution, Louis XVI, indeed, had made his royal progress to death in due state, scated in his closed court-chariot, protected by the glass wall from the worst indignities, from the vilest curiosity, from the crudest exhibitions of popular hatred. Since then, however, the Republic had made rapid advances. There must be equality even on the drive to the guillotine. No reason why an ex-queen should go to death more comfortably than other citizens, and a knacker’s cart was good enough for Widow of Capetian Dynasty! The seat was a bare board fixed to the uprights. Danton, Robespierre, Fouquier-Tinville, Hébert—ail those who were now sending Marie Antoinette to her death—would take their last drive seated on the same hard piece of wood; and the condemned of today was only a few stages in front of her judges. Next month, Madame Roland, the month after, Madame Dubarry, were to travel the same road.

The first to emerge from the dark entry of the Conciergerie were some officers, who were followed by a company of soldiers with muskets at the ready. Then, composedly, and with a steady gait, came Marie Antoinette, Sanson, the executioner, was holding her by a long cord, the end of the cord with which he had tied her hands behind her back; was holding her as if there were danger that his victim, though surrounded by hundreds of armed men, might still escape him. Some of the bystanders, despite themselves, were shocked at this unexpected and needless humiliation. None of the customary scornful cries were raised. Not a sound was uttered as the Queen walked to the tumbril. There, Sanson helped her to get in, Girard, the priest, who did not wear a cassock, but was dressed in civilian attire, seated himself beside her. The executioner, with an unmoved countenance, remained standing throughout the drive, still with the cord in his hand. With no more concern than Charon ferrying the souls of the departed across the Styx did he daily convey his doomed freight to the other shore of life. On this occasion, however, during the journey, he and his assistants, held their three-cornered hats under their arms, as if, by this unwonted token of respect, they were asking pardon of the defenceless woman whom they were about to slay on the scaffold.

The tumbril rattled slowly over the stone pavement. Plenty of time had been allowed for the drive, since all who wished were to be given an opportunity of feasting their eyes on the unusual spectacle. On the hard seat the Queen, was jolted by every movement of the roughly made cart, but, her pale face imperturbable, staring out into vacancy with her red-rimmed eyes, Marie Antoinette gave no sign of fear, no indication that she was aware of the inquisitive crowd that had gathered to see her going to her doom. In vain did the fiercest of her enemies try to detect a sign of weakness. Nothing could shake her equanimity; not even when, as she was passing the church of SaintRoch, the women gathered there assailed her with cries of scorn; not even when Grammont the actor, wishing to enliven the gloomy scene, wearing his uniform of a National Guard rode a few paces beside the death-chariot swinging his sabre and shouting, 'There she is, the infamous Antoinette! She’s done for at last, my friends!' She seemed neither to hear nor to see. The savage noises of the street made no impression on her cars, the savage sights no impression on her eyes, for the bitterness of death was already past. Even Hebert had to admit next day in 'Pére Duchesne,' 'The whore, for the rest, was bold and impudent to the very end.'

At the corner of the Rue Saint-Honoré, where the Café de la Régence now stands, a man stood waiting, an artist's block in one hand and a pencil in the other. It was Louis David, one of the greatest cowards but also one of the greatest painters of his day. Among the loudest of spouters while the Revolution was in full cry, he served the men of might so long as they were mighty, only to abandon them in the hour of danger. He painted Marat on the death-hed. When the Eighth Thermidor came, he emotionally gave his word to Rabespierre “to drink the cup with him to the dregs”; but next day, that of the fateful sitting, the thirst for heroism had been quenched; he decided to stay at home, and thus saved himself from the guillotine. No one could more bitterly have denounced tyrants than did he, during the Revolution, but he would be one of the first to attach himself to the rising fortunes of the new dictator; and in due time, when he made a picture of Napoleon’s coronation and was for this service granted the title of baron, he showed how genuine had been his hatred of the aristocrats. A typical specimen of those who lick the boots of the powerful, always ready to flatter the successful but pitiless towards the vanquished, he was equally ready to limn the victor at the coronation and the vanquished on the way to the scaffold. From the same tumbril which was now bearing Marie Antoinette to her fate, Danton, who knew how contemptible was the man's spirit, hissed at him the exclamation, 'You have the soul of a lackey!' But though he was a despicable creature, though he had the soul of a servant, he had an artist’s eye and an artist's hand. In a trice he had sketched the Queen as she was passing, a cruclly magnificent drawing, made from the life with sinister skill; the picture of a woman prematurely old, no longer beautiful, to whom nothing but pride remains. Her mouth is arrogantly closed; her expression is one of profound indifference; with her hands tied behind her back she sits as challengingly upright on the wooden seat of the tumbril as if she were seated upon a throne, Every line of her stony countenance speaks disdain, and her pose is one of invincible resolution. Suffering transformed into defiance, pain metamorphosed into energy, give her tortured face a new and dreadful majesty. Not even hatred, which made this picture, can deny the awful dignity with which Marie Antoinette endured the shame of her drive to the place of execution.

The huge Place de la Révolution, now known as the Place de la Concorde, was thronged by a mighty crowd, Tens of thousands had been standing there since carly morning, lest they should miss the unique spectacle of a Queen, as Hébert had coarsely phrased it, 'being shaved by the national razor.' They had been kept waiting there, hours and hours. To while away the time, one talked to a pretty girl at one’s side, one laughed and gossiped, one bought newspapers or caricatures from the hawkers, one fluttered the pages of the most topical pamphlets, such as 'Les adieux de la Reine a ses mignons et mignonnes' and 'Grandes fureurs de la ci-devant Reine.' In cautious whispers, one discussed with one’s neighbour, whose head was likely to fall tomorrow or next day. Between times, for refreshments, one bought lemonade, rolls, or nuts. The great scene was worth a little patience.

‘Towering above the heads of this inquisitive and lively throng, were to be seen the only motionless objects in the great square, first of all, the one and only, the Guillotine. It was not Joseph-Ignace Guillotin invent the guillotine, his name became an eponym for it. The actual inventor of the prototype was a man named Tobias Schmidt, working with the king's physician, Antoine Louis. Dr. Guilotin was a French physician, politician, and freemason who proposed on 10 October 1789 the use of a device to carry out death penalties in France, as a less painful method of execution than existing methods.

On the 9th of October, 1789, the National Assembly, in consequence of the tragic exodus of the Court from Versailles, resolved to transfer itself to Paris, and Dr. Guillotin, being one of the representatives of that city, thought it expedient to prepare for himself a good reception from his constituents, and on that very day he gave notice of, and on the next—the 10th—produced, the following series of propositions:

— Crimes of the same kind shall be punished by the same kind of punishment, whatever be the rank of the criminal.

— In all cases (whatever be the crime) of capital punishment, it shall be of the same kind—that is, beheading—and it shall be executed by means of a machine [Teffet d’un simple mecanisme]

—etc. ... etc. ...

The uprights of the Guillotine, connected at the top by two cross-bars—a wooden bridge leading from this world to the nest. Near the summit there, gleamed in the chill October sunshine, like a sign-post on the way, the freshly sharpened knife. This gruesome instrument stood sharp and clear against the sky, and the birds, who knew naught of its sinister meaning, flew above it unheeding.

Near by, much taller than the gateway of death, towered the huge statue of liberty upon the pedestal which once had borne the monument of Louis XV. A seated figure, that of the unapproachable deity, her head crowned by the Phrygian cap, and the sword of justice in her hand; she sat there, petrified, the Gaddess of Liberty, dreaming, dreaming. Her white eyes were staring across the restless crowd and across the “humane-killer” into distances invisible to human eyes. She did not see human beings at all, neither their life nor their death—this incomprehensible and eternally beloved goddess, with the dreaming eyes of stone. She did not hear the voices of those who appealed to her; she did not notice the garlands that were laid upon her stony knees; she did not see the blood that drenched the earth beneath her fect. An everlasting ideal, an alien among human beings, she sat mutely staring into the distant void, contemplating her invisible goal. She neither asked nor knew what deeds were being done in her name.

There was a stir in the crowd, and a sudden silence. This silence was broken by savage shouts from the Rue Saint-Honoré. A squadron of cavalry rode into the Place, followed by the tumbril in which was seated the bound woman who had once been queen of France; behind her, stood Sanson, the executioner. So, still was it in the huge square that the stamping of the horses and the gride of the wheels was plainly audible. The thousands upon thousands of spectators, regarded with a sort of consternation the pale victim, who seemed to ignore their presence. She was but awaiting the final test. In a few minutes death would come, to be followed by immortality.

The tumbril drew up beside the scaffold. Unaided, 'with an air even more composed than when leaving the prison,' the Queen mounted the wooden steps, tripping up them as lightly in her high-heeled black satin shoes, as if they had been the marble staircase at Versailles. One last glance, skywards over the heads of the onlookers! Did she, through the autumnal haze, discern the Tuileries, where she had dwelt nearly three years and had suffered so atrociously? Did she, during this last minute of her life, recall the day when a crowd similar to that now assembled, differing only in attitude of mind, had, in the gardens of the Tuileries, acclaimed her as successor to the throne? Who can tell? No one ever learns the last thoughts of the dying. The end had came. The executioner and his assistants seized her by the back, thrust her into position, kneeling, with her throat in the lower half of the round; the upper board was adjusted to the back of her neck; they pulled the string; a flash of the falling knife; a dull thud; and, by the hair, Sanson picked up a bleeding head and lifted it on high for the multitude to gloat upon. Those who had been holding their breath for the last half minute, now broke into a wild shout of 'Long live the Republic!' Then the onlookers hastily scattered. 'Parbleu, it is already a quarter past twelve, more than time for déjeuner; we must get home quickly.' No need to loiter! Tomorrow, day after day, for weeks and for months, those who like the sight and smell of blood, will be able to foregather in the Place de ia Révolution, and watch the same tragedy reiterated a thousandfold.

Monsieur de France was silent for a moment, his eyes welled with tears, and after wiping his eyes, he said, 'The executioner has wheeled away the body in a little hand-cart, the head thrust, betwixt the legs. A few gendarmes are left to guard the scaffuld. No one troubles about the blood which is slowly soaking into the ground.

Except for the gendarmes, the only spectator left in the Place de la Révolution is the Goddess of Liberty, motiontess, petrified, looking out as before into the distance, towards her invisible goal. Of the happenings that morning in the square she has seen and heard nothing. Severe of aspect, disregarding the savageries and follies of mankind, she contemplates the eternal distance. She knows not, nor wishes to know, the deeds that are done in her name. The cemetery of the Madeleine is a silent witness to the body of Marie Antoinette, sometime Queen of France."

The Moon sighed, saying, "Indeed, after the Revolution broke out, the Tyrant could not escape the Guillotine. But behind the Revolution, many cowards, a.k.a the Tirans lackeys, were hiding, and then, when things were safe, they created rival creatures for the Guillotine, the Oligarchy, a necessity, which Democracy cannot avoid. One day, if there is another Revolution, when brought before the trial, will they make excuses, citing Marie Antoinette's last words, recorded as, "Pardonnez-moi, monsieur. Je ne l'ai pas fait exprès" or 'Pardon me, sir, I did not do it on purpose,' after accidentally stepping on her executioner's shoe? And Allah knows best."

Citations & References:
- Stefan Zweig, Marie Antoinette—The Portrait of an Average Woman, Cassel nd Company, Ltd.
- John Wilson Croker, The History of the Guillotine, John Murray

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